


must be your skin i'm sinking in

by hikaie



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adoption, Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8082937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikaie/pseuds/hikaie
Summary: “Takashi Shirogane.” The mic crackles with feedback. The audience claps politely; two women near the back stand from their seats and clap louder than the rest, beam hard enough to crack their faces in two.
Keith forgets how to breathe. He blames it on the desert air.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as an example submission for something and didn't get in. Oh well! But here it is now. I was thinking of expanding upon it but that's very unlikely at this point. It can be read standalone anyway!

The first time that they meet is in the playroom while Shiro is playing with jumbo building blocks. Keith is sitting on the squashy couch shoved against the opposite wall, picking at a loose thread in the cushion. There’s an ugly feeling in his stomach. He’s used to it now. He can hear quiet voices in the hallway. He can’t make out what they’re saying but he can guess.

Shiro is cobbling together a tower in neat lines of color. The right wall is green, the left red. He’s working on a yellow one now. The other boy looks up and Keith continues to stare at him unflinchingly.

“Wanna help?” Shiro’s moves his mouth around English syllables like it comes naturally to him. Keith doesn’t know much of his other, native tongue, but he’d rather use that. Keep it close to him.

“It’s okay.” Shiro insists. “I had a bad meeting today, too. Playing blocks helps.” He sounds earnest, so Keith slips off the couch and joins him. He starts filling up the other wall with blue jumbo blocks, following Shiro’s example. Shiro starts to outline his plans for a block castle and his voice drowns out the hushed, sorry ones drifting in from the hallway.

 

Shiro becomes his best- and only- friend in the boy’s home.

Shiro goes to a new foster home seven months and eight days later.

He gets adopted two months after that.

Keith doesn’t get adopted.

Ever.

 

The atmosphere in the hall is suffocating, in more ways than one. The AC is on the fritz, allowing the dry desert heat to sneak in. It sets Keith to sweating in his uniform. There are other cadets pressed in around him. Keith focuses on keeping his feet flat on the floor and his spine straight.

He’s in A-school now, he reminds himself. This is not the same harsh environment as basic. He knows that it’s an honor, not a punishment, to stand at attendance during the ceremonies for the graduating cadets. Yet he’s fixated on the ache in his back and on the sweat sliding down his temple.

Every time the commander reads off a name the crowd erupts in scattered applause. Keith’s eyes are glazed over in disinterest, as he doesn’t know any of the higher-ranking cadets.

“Takashi Shirogane.” The mic crackles with feedback. The audience claps politely; two women near the back stand from their seats and clap louder than the rest, beam hard enough to crack their faces in two.

Keith forgets how to breathe. He blames it on the desert air.

 

Shiro stays on at the Garrison; his flying skills are superb and his charm even better. The high command love him.

Keith approaches him the day after graduation. The words are on the tip of his tongue, begging to be said. “Don’t you remember me? That angry orphan you used to play with?” Shiro’s eyes light up with recognition before he can say anything. He smiles, sending Keith’s heart into a funny little flip in his chest.

“You’re Keith, right?” He winces, because his papers say Akira. The name Shiro would know him by.

“Yeah.” His mouth is dry, dry, dry.

“The command has nothing but good things to say about you. Keep it up.” He squeezes Keith’s shoulder and walks off down the path.

Keith doesn’t get to tell him.

 

As Red locks into places, Keith remembers the jumbo blocks. For the first time in years, he remembers a friend, a brother; he feels like he’s right where he belongs. They meet again, in the white-hot mind-meld of Voltron.


End file.
